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Expand a virtual drive on a Dell Perc 6/i Raid 6?
Hello,
I've got a PowerEdge T310 with 4 hotswap drives (raid 6), and its running dangerously low on space..
Can I just purchase 4 new larger drives, and (one-by-one) replace the old ones?
Can I expand the virtual drive or will I have to create a second virtual drive with the new free space?
Thank for you help
-Michael
DELL-Sam L
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March 3rd, 2014 11:00
Hello RobertQuinn,
Here is the Supported way of getting the extra space for your system.
1) Get a backup of your data
2) Delete array
3) Recreate array with big drives
4) Reinstall OS if have an OS on the Array before
5) Restore data from backup
Now there is also an UNSUPPORTED way that you can do this as well & to do it that way is as follows:
1) Get a backup of your data.
2) Rebuild each large drive to array.
3) After all rebuilt Delete array.
4) After the array has been deleted then do a Retag array
5) Do NOT init the virtual disk
6) Create new array with space avail
Please let us know if you have any other questions.
DELL-Sam L
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January 2nd, 2014 15:00
Hello Michael,
You can’t just purchase new drives & replace them one by one & see the new space. Now what you can do is to replace the drive one at a time & then do a reconfigure. To do a reconfigure you will need to be using open manage 7.1 or higher you can click on the virtual disk and do a reconfigure. When you go into the reconfigure you should see the option to expand using the available space. Now it is best to get a backup before attempting this just incase you run into any issues with it.
Please let us know if you have any other questions.
RobertQuinn
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February 28th, 2014 11:00
wodz
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March 1st, 2014 19:00
This needs to be done one drive at a time. your RAID5 controller set can only function properly with the loss of one drive. This means that if you replace one drive your RAID array will be in a critical state. Replacing the drive with a larger capacity will then require you to reconfigure your VD aforementioned.
If you were to remove all 5 drives and replace them with larger drives the array has no way to understand the configuration changes since you have removed your parity drive. Put all 5 drives back and replace them one by one. Remove one, insert new and then reconfigure VD - repeat.
Never remove/replace more than one disk at a time in a RAID environment.
RobertQuinn
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March 3rd, 2014 08:00
RobertQuinn
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March 3rd, 2014 10:00
DELL-Sam L
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March 3rd, 2014 12:00
Hello RobertQuinn,
Yes you can use Open manage server administrator to do this process. When you do a retag will be from bios. Also remember to verify no initlize of virtual disk.
Please let us know if you have any other questions.
RobertQuinn
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March 3rd, 2014 12:00
DELL-Sam L
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March 3rd, 2014 13:00
Hello RobertQuinn,
Yes you can use Open manage server administrator to do this process. When you do a retag will be from bios. Also remember to verify no initlize of virtual disk.
Please let us know if you have any other questions.
WillS99
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March 12th, 2014 08:00
You were doing it right the first time (i.e. replace one drive at a time, let it rebuild, then repeat for the rest of the drives), the previous poster probably meant 'rebuild' and not 'reconfigure'. Why did you stop the reconfigure after replacing all 5 drives? Or if you didn't stop it, what was the outcome (it should have worked...)
Don't delete your raid array, that's clearly not the correct method!
RobertQuinn
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March 12th, 2014 09:00
Ok, now I am feeling better about my process. I stopped the reconfigure because I wasn't sure what it was going to do and wanted to ask for advice first, the advice being the above comments that I was doing it wrong (but yes, it did seem right to me). I am going to try (replace/rebuild x 5, reconfigure) again in a couple weeks when we are closed down here and I can do it without interrupting service. Thank you!
DELL-Sam L
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March 12th, 2014 11:00
Robert,
Not a problem, & feel free to reach back out if you have any other questions.
MSS10
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March 17th, 2015 13:00
I am kind of confused with the last step.
6) create new array with space available.
if i have a raid 1 with 50 GB and after the upgrade the new total size of the hard drive is 200 GB.
do you mean create new array with space available meaning the 150GB difference or the total 200GB?
20m
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December 25th, 2015 04:00
how much time rebuild will take ??
ronklopfer
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January 13th, 2017 12:00
Hello,
I am in a similar situation and I hope that DELL-SAM L can provide some guidance.
Dell Perc 6/i, Windows small business sever 2011, Dell OpenManage 8.4.
What I have done so far:
-Original RAID was 3 drives, 465 GB each, configured as RAD-5.
-One by one, I replaced each drive with a new 930 GB drive, and then allowed that drive to rebuild before replacing the next drive.
-I then added a 4th drive (also a new 930 GB drive), which was intended to be a hot spare.
-Attempting to get the virtual disk to expand, I reconfigured to RAID-0, and then back to RAID-5.
-Currently I have a RAID-5 array with a virtual disk using all 4 drives, 1395 GB. The virtual disk is using 465 GB out of the available 930GB on each of the 4 drives.
What I want is: RAID-5, with 3 active disks and a hot spare. The virtual disk should be 1830 GB (using all the space on the drives).
I have not yet backed up the data. The server operating system is on this disk. I don't know what it means to "retag" the array"
Where do I go from here? Thanks!
Ron